Continued coverage

This may be hard to comprehend, but the tone was set for the upcoming season way back in spring.

It wasn’t at a spring practice or in a stuffy weight room. Nope, it was in a CIF conference room.

That’s where championship fortunes are won and lost these days, not necessarily on fields. We can only be referring to one thing — the playoff grouping process.

CIF can’t really dictate to schools how to form their leagues. They trust the athletic directors and principals and coaches to do that, and save for some head-scratching moments, those people do a great job.

XTRA XTRA!

Look for the Prep Xtra keepsake magazine in your print edition of the paper on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014.

But what CIF can control are the playoff divisions that form the Southern Section. And what happened this season seemingly changed the fortunes of several local programs almost overnight.

Let’s start at Glendora where the Tartans had fallen off the face of the local landscape after toiling in the Baseline League and Inland Division the past several years.

This year, Glendora will be in the more doable Palomares League and presumably in the much more comfortable Centeral Division playoffs.

Nothing’s really changed about Glendora’s football program. It’s basically the same type of kid who has always put on the Tartans uniform. But thanks to the powers that be at CIF, that kid will find things considerably more realistic this season.

In recent years, many in the Valley have grown tired of watching Monrovia dominate the Mid-Valley Division. It was painfully obvious that the Wildcats needed a step up in class. The Rio Hondo League wasn’t capable of doing that, but CIF was all too willing.

Now, the entire Rio Hondo League will be playing in the Central Division where Monrovia will get more properly tested in the postseason at the expense of its league mate’s respective chances of having a nice playoff run of their own.

Fortune switches like what happened to Glendora and Monrovia happened all over the place this offseason.

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St. Francis now has a more reasonable task ahead of it in the Southeast Division. The Knights were probably never going to win a championship in the Western Division. This fall, they’ll probably be one of the favorites in the Southeast.

Charter Oak would have continued to dominate the Southeast Division had CIF not moved the Chargers up to the Inland Division where the best Big Lou Farrar’s team could do was reach the second round. The Chargers are now back in business in the Central Division. Same with South Hills.

Monrovia’s exit from the Mid-Valley Division has set the stage for San Dimas to put together a nice run in the division as it gets ready to defend last year’s title. But beyond that, with Monrovia gone, teams like Arroyo or Pomona have seen their chances of a deep run increase.

It wasn’t all good news, though. Some teams saw their assignments get tougher despite staying put.

St. Francis and the Serra joining the Southeast Division have made winning a championship much more difficult for Whittier-area powers La Mirada and La Serna. Same can be said for Muir.

Of course, the games still need to be played. Many different twists and turns can happen in a high school football season. The groundwork has been laid, however.

There is a popular notion now in football that suggests the sport is a year-round proposition. It’s true, the offseason continues to be more and more important. This year, though, it’s not because of anything more than CIF shuffling the deck.

This year’s postseason figures to be one of the very best in local history. The potential match ups between local teams and the neighborhood feuds they will produce figure to be nothing sort of spectacular.

All there is to do now is flip through these pages and get acquainted with this year’s teams and the stars who make them go.

There’s plenty to review. Once you’re done, it will likely be time for kickoff. Enjoy what happens next ...